Pensions Minister Guy Opperman has reiterated the government’s commitment to reducing the automatic enrolment age limit from 22 to 18.

In an answer to a written question, Opperman said that the government’s ambition to lower the age limit would “enable more people to begin to save”.

He conceded, however, that employers, payroll and “other delivery partners” would need time to plan for the changes.

Employers would need time to “adjust to costs over the coming years” before the government’s proposed changes would be able to be implemented.

He added: “We also want to understand properly the impact of the April 2019 contribution increase before committing to a timetable for the proposed changes.”

The government initially announced its intentions as part of its 2017 Review of Automatic Enrolment, which stated: “We want pension saving to be the norm when people start work, and therefore want young people to benefit from automatic enrolment.”

Automatic enrolment contribution levels are set to rise in April, although recent government research found that many workers were unaware of the contribution increase.

The number of workers who have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme reached 10 million in January 2019.

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